News items come from the U.S. Department of Educations's National Clearinghouse for Educational Facilities (NCEF).

Chicago Public School parents take concerns to mayor's doorstep
-- Evelyn Holmes, ABClocal

Illinois: February 20, 2012 -- A group of parents marched past the home of Mayor Rahm Emanuel Monday night, protesting Chicago Public Schools' plans to turn around or close 16 underperforming schools. About 200 protesters marched from Lakeview High School where several groups held a rally before walking about a half dozen blocks over to Emanuel's home. They held a candlelight silent vigil just feet from the mayor's front door. Activists say the turnaround plan destabilizes schools and communities while displacing good teachers who just lack resources. Wendell Smith Elementary School is on the list, once again leaving some parents shut out. "This is outcry to have everybody all over the world pay attention," said Sharisa Lee Vaval, parent. "It's not just happening here, it's happening everywhere." "We have been pushed to the last step," said Darcell Ezell, Wendell Smith school aide. District officials say Smith is not meeting educational standards and has been chronically underperforming for years. In a statement CPS spokesperson Becky Carroll writes, "with almost one out of two students not graduating high school, and only 7.9 percent of our 11th graders testing college ready, we can no longer accept schools that fail." Officials also created the new Office of Community and Family Engagement last July. The purpose of the little-known office is to focus on solely on parents and school communities. Still, the turnaround program angers those at Smith who blame a lack of funding for the problems at the South Side grade school.

Education shackled to school buildings’ past
-- Nick Kotsopoulos , telegram.com

Massachusetts: February 19, 2012 -- Few would argue that a high quality education system begins in the classroom. But as Brian Allen, chief financial and operating officer for Worcester’s public schools, put it last week: “To be able to offer 21st-century educational programs, a school system needs 21st-century facilities.” That is a point well taken when you consider that Worcester’s public school buildings average 70 years in age — not exactly 21st-century-like facilities. Yes, many folks marvel at the new Worcester Technical High School and the new North High School, but out of the school system’s 44 elementary, middle and high school buildings, only 11 have been built or renovated since 1990. Those school buildings are “kids” in terms of age compared to some of the others. One school was built in the 1980s, five in the 1970s, five in the 1960s, four in the 1950s, two in the 1930s, five in the 1920s and five in the 1900s. And there are even six school buildings built pre-1900, with the oldest one 133 years old (Grafton Street No. 1, built in 1879). At a joint meeting last week of the City Council Education Committee and the School Committee Standing Committee on Finance and Operations, Mr. Allen said the Worcester public school system loses about 400 students a year to other school districts through the school choice program. Of that, about one-third of those students attend the Wachusett school district, he said.

Rosenwald schools’ history being preserved with building, program
-- Charmaine Smith-Miles, Independent Mail

South Carolina: February 19, 2012 -- Building construction student Frank Kay has worked on framing a building before. But the one he’s helping build on the Tri-County Technical College campus in Anderson is different. Kay, 41, is proud of this building, because when it is finished, it will teach the local community something about what his ancestors went through to be educated. This one-room schoolhouse will be a replica of a Rosenwald school that was built for the local black community in the 1920s and 1930s. “Anything to do with education and our heritage is good,” Kay said. “Maybe these younger kids will see what their ancestors went through to get an education. Maybe that will inspire them to go on and get an education. Because everybody needs an education these days.” In this schoolhouse, people will see that those who went to class in a Rosenwald school made the most of natural light instead of using a lot of electricity. They did not have indoor plumbing. Books for the classroom were scarce, and often were worn and ragged after they were passed on from the local white schools. There were 5,357 Rosenwald schools from Maryland to Texas, funded by Julius Rosenwald, the president of Sears, Roebuck and Co. and contributions from the local black communities. The schools were built between 1910 and 1932.

Charter schools seeking cut of school districts' construction dollars
-- Kathleen McGrory and Scott Hiaasen, Sun Sentinel

Florida: February 18, 2012 -- A legislative plan to give charter schools a cut of local school districts' construction money would steer millions of additional dollars to large charter-school networks that are already sitting on tens of millions of dollars in cash, records show. The charter-school industry is lobbying hard to gain a share of tax dollars raised by school districts to cover the construction and maintenance costs of traditional public schools — tax revenue that has dropped dramatically in recent years with plummeting real-estate values. School districts say the proposal could cost them as much as $140 million a year statewide and cripple their ability to repair aging buildings and pay debts for past construction. But charter school operators say the lesser funding for their students is unfair, and argue that withholding construction money has stifled charter schools' growth. Many charter schools collect more tax dollars than they spend, and sock away the unspent cash. The Doral Academy charter-school network, with five Miami-Dade schools, had net assets of $13.6 million last year, much of it cash, records show. The Doral Academy network is one of four large South Florida charter-school chains run by Academica, the state's largest charter school operator. These four school networks — the Doral, Mater, Somerset and Pinecrest academies — had combined assets of more than $83 million last year, records show. This money is held by nonprofits that own the schools, which are managed by Academica, a for-profit company based in South Miami. These schools could stand to gain millions more every year from the construction tax dollars, which would be distributed on a per-student basis. For example, the Doral, Mater, Somerset and Pinecrest academies would receive an additional $14.5 million from the Miami-Dade school district this year alone under the proposal. Lynn Norman Teck, spokeswoman for the Florida Consortium of Public Charter Schools, said charters should not be cut out of construction funding because some schools have been financially savvy. "Their reserves are for a rainy day," Teck said.

Appeals Court Upholds Ban on Worship in Public Schools
-- MATT FLEGENHEIMER, New York Times

New York: February 17, 2012 -- In the latest twist of a winding legal case over worship in public school facilities, a federal appeals court ruled on Friday that New York City was allowed to prevent dozens of religious groups from holding services in the schools. The ruling, by a panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit — which the city had asked to review a lower court’s decision — came one day after a federal judge directed the city to halt its plan to eject religious groups that that had been worshiping in public schools on weekends. The appeals court said a temporary restraining order that the judge, Loretta A. Preska of United States District Court in Manhattan, issued on Thursday applied only to the plaintiff in the case before her, the Bronx Household of Faith, and not to other groups. “The Department of Education is legitimately concerned about public schools being affiliated with a particular religious belief or practice,” Jane Gordon, a lawyer for the city, said. Jordan W. Lorence, the lawyer for the Bronx Household of Faith, said other religious groups were unlikely to try to use the facilities this weekend. “I don’t think there’s going to be any civil disobedience or anything like that,” he said. “The school officials would have to unlock the doors.” He said other church congregations were still assessing their options. One had discussed holding services on the sidewalk, he said, while others considered renting space in synagogues or other houses of worship whose congregations meet Saturdays. Kate O’Brien Ahlers, a spokeswoman for the city’s Law Department, said the city did not anticipate any confrontations. On Thursday, Judge Preska ruled that the Bronx Household of Faith had “a likelihood of success” on its claim that the Constitution required the schools to remain open to them. She said her injunction would last 10 days, after which she could make the order more permanent.

Parents call for equal school facilities
-- Catherine Martin, Columbia Tribune

Missouri: February 16, 2012 -- With a new high school taking shape northeast of Columbia, some parents of students who will continue to attend the existing high schools are calling for equal facilities at all buildings. Plans for new gymnasiums at Rock Bridge and Hickman high schools already are in place, but some Hickman parents came forward at Monday's Columbia Board of Education meeting to ask for equal wrestling facilities, too. Right now, Hickman wrestlers practice in the building where the school's pool is housed. A wrestling room is part of the gym expansion plans at Rock Bridge. Battle High School, opening in fall 2013, is not planned to have a specific wrestling room when it opens, but “there will be enough space when it opens that wrestling will have space available to it,” said Jonathan Sessions, a school board member and chairman of the long-range facilities committee. “As the school grows, it will be something we will have to address.” Parent Julie Shea said she would like to see a larger space at Hickman specifically for wrestlers' use and mentioned past mold issues in the current facility. “Wrestling needs more than just the space … for just rolling mats out. It's very unsanitary, and it takes an hour to haul the mats out,” Shea said. “We need equitable facilities in our school. Most high schools throughout the state have wrestling facilities, and we need to make this a priority in our town for our youth.” “You're not giving wrestling a chance,” MU wrestling Coach Brian Smith added.

State reimbursement cuts could undermine Pennsylvania school construction projects
-- Evan Brandt, The Mercury

Pennsylvania: February 16, 2012 -- Hidden in the fine print of Gov. Tom Corbett’s proposed 2012-13 budget is a funding freeze for Pennsylvania’s program to reimburse school districts for construction projects. Tuesday night, both Pottstown and Pottsgrove school districts — each in a different phase of construction — grappled with what that might mean. For Pottstown, it may mean a whole different plan for renovating its elementary schools (that decision may be made at tonight’s meeting); whereas for Pottsgrove, it means the potential loss of $3.2 million in reimbursement for the renovated Ringing Rocks Elementary School, which just re-opened in January. They’re not alone. Phoenixville Area School District has three building projects in various stages of state reimbursement and the Western Montgomery Career and Technology Center in Limerick is trying to close out its $40 million expansion and renovation project. Officials in all of these districts are scratching their heads, trying to figure out what it all means. “Some things we thought were engraved in stone may turn out not to be,” said Pottsgrove Business Manager Dave Nester. He said the 2012-13 budget he is now working on anticipates a $686,000 debt payment, of which the state would be responsible for 20 percent, or roughly $137,000. With questions surrounding PlanCon, as the state reimbursement program is known, the possibility exists that Pottsgrove taxpayers will have to make up that difference, Nester said. He said the decisions made about the Ringing Rocks project were made with the belief that the state reimbursement would be available. “The PlanCon process is pretty cumbersome and the only reason you go through it is to get that reimbursement,” Nester said. “We knew we needed to upgrade Rocks, but if we had known there was a possibility that state reimbursement might not be there, or be delayed, we might have done some things differently.”

Quinn announces school construction funding
-- Associated Press, Chicago Tribune

Illinois: February 16, 2012 -- More than two dozen Illinois school districts will get around $623 million in capital funds to update and repair schools. Gov. Pat Quinn announced the money Thursday at an elementary school in Hazel Crest, a suburb south of Chicago. Quinn says the funding will help improve students' educational experiences. State officials approved 31 districts for the funding. The districts' proposed projects had to be approved. The funding includes about $114 million for Chicago Public Schools, and about $34 million for Peoria schools.

School Building Battle Turns Against Suburbs
-- Lauren Lee, My Fox Memphis

Tennessee: February 15, 2012 -- A committee meeting of the Unified School Board revealed what could be a new obstacle for the emerging Municipal School Districts. It has to do with the school buildings. The suburbs want the buildings within their borders for their own municipal districts. Right now, the policy the Unified Board is following is this: if a school is deemed "surplus," it can be sold, leased, or given away. The suburbs are banking on free schools. But, as we saw in Wednesday's meeting, that might not be so easy. For a school to be called surplus, it has to be empty of students or under capacity. The thought is, when municipal districts are created, the schools will automatically be empty because the schools will no longer be in the Shelby County school district. But, a map of the district shows the majority of schools are near borders of Memphis and suburbs or unincorporated area. Schools in Germantown, Bartlett, and some unincorporated areas are just a few miles from Memphis schools that are over crowded. Staff said it would be easy to fill suburban schools near the Memphis border with Memphis kids. But, the Board directed the staff to come up with which schools could be considered surplus anyway. Commissioner Martavius Jones says unification could actually help with overcrowding issues in schools near city borders. Since, many of these schools are unlikely to be declared surplus, the other option is an agreement. For example, when Memphis annexed areas of the county, the schools followed the kids as part of the annexation agreement.

New York state owes poor schools $5.5 billion: advocates
-- Joan Gralla, WTAQ

New York: February 15, 2012 -- Education advocates on Wednesday pushed New York State to increase funding for schools in impoverished areas in the budget for the new fiscal year, saying those schools are owed $5.5 billion under a 2007 court ruling. The Education Law Center, which absorbed the advocate group that had won the historic school funding lawsuit, did not specify how much extra funding it is seeking in the budget for poor school districts for the budget for fiscal 2013, which starts April 1. New York's top court in 2007 had ruled that the state had failed to provide students in poor areas with the constitutionally required "sound, basic education." New York had started to fulfill the court ruling by agreeing to a four-year increase in aid for students in so-called high needs areas. Spending rose more than $1 billion in 2007 and 2008, according to the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, the group that had won the lawsuit. There was no funding increase in 2009, however. The state's tax revenue sank during the economic downturn, and education funding was cut by $2.7 billion in 2010. Children in poor school districts bore the brunt of those cuts, the Campaign for Fiscal Equity said. "We're asking the legislature to revise the Executive's budget by allocating increased funds to the Foundation program to put the State back on track towards constitutional compliance," David Sciarra, executive director, of the Education Law Center, said in a statement.

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